Inside your body are tiny “countdown clocks” that determine how long you’ll live.
By slowing the countdown, you may be able to extend your lifespan, and you’ll feel younger longer.
Today, I’m going to show you how to tap the remarkable power of these tiny timekeepers so you can keep doing everything you want for longer than you ever thought possible.
This will be a major focus when we open my new Anti-Aging Center. It’s part of my resolution to you that in the next five years, we’re going to make 100 the new 50.
And it starts with increasing your Body Intelligence.
Improving your Body Intelligence is about:
• enhancing your speed and power
• keeping the stamina to go all day long
• boosting your natural defenses against infections and aging.
A higher body IQ means you can have the same freedom and choices when you’re 100 years old that you have when you’re 50.
But it’s not just for people over 50…
Body Intelligence also is important if you’re in your 30s and 40s, too. Because it includes restoring and protecting your youth starting right from your DNA, the building block of every cell in your body.
At the end of each strand of DNA is a little bit of genetic material called a telomere (tee-lo-meer). The length of these telomeres determines how old or young a cell acts.
As your cells divide, the telomeres get shorter, and this is where the genetic countdown begins.
Over time, your body produces cells that are older and weaker when you copy DNA with shorter telomeres.
In fact, studies show that the shorter your telomeres are, the “older” your body is, regardless of your actual age.1
- One study published this month looked at 1,136 people, and followed them for six years. They found that people with the shortest telomeres – no matter their age, sex or race – were 60% more likely to die earlier than those with the longest telomeres.2
- In two separate European studies on twins, the twin with the shorter telomeres was more likely to die first. Three times as likely in the latest study.3
- And a quality of life study published by Oxford University followed over 3,000 healthy men and women for 10 years. People who were in “excellent” or “very good” health had significantly longer telomeres than people who were only in “fair” or “poor” health.4
At my new clinic, we’ll measure the length of the telomeres in your infection-fighting cells called T-cells. Plus, we would test to see how many T-cells have stopped working.
We would show you the best way for you to maintain, or even lengthen your telomeres.
If you can’t come to my new clinic to measure your Body Intelligence, here’s something you can do starting today to help keep your telomeres from shortening. This will let you keep doing more, and stay active and independent throughout your lifetime.
I’m talking about challenging yourself in a way that mimics natural challenges with PACE.
PACE is the first physical anti-aging system, designed to give you the intensity you need to maintain long telomeres and slow their loss.
Let me explain…
Recently a study of 2,401 twins found that physical activity was related to telomere length. Moderate levels of activity created much longer telomeres than either zero exercise or too much exercise.
People got to choose the kind of exercise they liked to do. They did things like running, swimming or tennis. Those who exercised moderately had telomeres that looked five or six years younger. Those who exercised vigorously had telomeres that looked nine years younger.5
Researchers in Germany found that intense exercise keeps your cardiovascular system from aging by preventing shortening of telomeres.6
And in a study done at the University of California in San Francisco, people who exercised vigorously had lower levels of perceived stress and were likelier to have longer telomeres.7
The problem with aerobics and traditional “cardio” is that they are not vigorous workouts. They are “moderate-intensity” workouts.
Sure, you might run for a long time, but duration doesn’t equal intensity. When you jog, you do it at low or medium power, which doesn’t help slow telomere loss.
What you want to do instead is exercise using the principles of my PACE program. PACE makes an exciting, vigorous workout accessible to anyone, regardless of your current condition. You can start out walking if that’s all you can do!
PACE helps you by boosting the amount of exercise incrementally, challenging your body to grow stronger, and improving your body’s IQ. You control your progression, and you can alter the type of workouts you do to keep it fun and interesting.
In fact, here’s an example of a workout using this system you can do right now:
a. Lie down on your stomach and stretch your arms in front of you.
b. Raise arms and legs off the floor and sweep your arms back to your thighs.
c. Return arms to starting position and repeat.
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When you’re ready, try 100 repetitions while timing yourself. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. Take your time. Rest if you need to. But continue until you’ve done 100 repetitions.
During your next PACE session, time yourself again and shoot for doing them a little faster, or, in taking the same amount of time, adding more reps before your breaks. To make it tougher, you can hold a ball between your feet.
And that’s the key to PACE – aim to progressively accelerate the intensity of the exertion, NOT the duration. You should never exert yourself for more than a total of 12 minutes. More exertion in a shorter amount of time is the key to longer telomeres and higher Body Intelligence.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
PS: Coming soon, you’ll be able to experience PACE in a whole new way with our first-ever PACE Fitness Center. I’ll tell you all about it in an upcoming Doctor’s House Call. Stay tuned for more details.
1 Armanios, Mary, et al, “Short Telomeres are Sufficient to Cause the Degenerative Defects Associated with Aging,” Am. J. Hum. Genet. Dec. 11, 2009; 85(6):823–832
2 Fitzpatrick, Annette L., et al, “Leukocyte Telomere Length and Mortality in the Cardiovascular Health Study,” Oxford Journals Life Sciences & Medicine, The Journals of Gerontology; Series A,66A(4):421-429
3 Bakaysa, S.L., Mucci, L.A., Slagboom, P.E., et al, “Telomere length predicts survival independent of genetic influences,” Aging Cell. Dec. 2007;6(6):769-74
4 Omer, T., Njajou, et al, “Association Between Telomere Length, Specific Causes of Death, and Years of Healthy Life in Health, Aging, and Body Composition, a Population-Based Cohort Study,” J. Gerontol. A. Biol Sci. Med. Sci. Aug 2009; 64A(8): 860–864
5 Cherkas, L., Hunkin, J. et al, “The Association Between Physical Activity in Leisure Time and Leukocyte Telomere Length,” Arch. Intern. Med. 2008;168(2):154-158
6 Werner, Christian, MD, et al, “Physical Exercise Prevents Cellular Senescence in Circulating Leukocytes and in the Vessel Wall,” Circulation 2009;120:2438-2447
7 Puterman, E,, Lin, J., Blackburn, E., et al, “The Power of Exercise: Buffering the Effect of Chronic Stress on Telomere Length,” PLoS ONE 2010;5(5): e10837